Regardless of how the 49ers fare in Sunday's Super Bowl, many San Francisco tech companies will come out winners.

While the media and fans descending on New Orleans this week will be focused on the big game, businesses will be using avenues old and new to reach customers and capitalize on the buzz.

The adage that the best business is done on the golf course pales beside the hype, parties and schmoozing of the NFL's big dance.

David Faugno, chief financial officer of Campbell security software developer Barracuda Networks, says that while his company gets involved with a wide range of sporting events, from IndyCar racing to professional hockey, none attract as many high-powered executives and IT decision makers as the Super Bowl does.

"You can catch people off guard, when they're free of the messaging of other vendors," he said. "Our message usually sticks much better."

Not only will Barracuda woo new deals and seek to boost business with existing customers lucky enough to score some of its seats for the game, it will blitz New Orleans media with ads, banner-carrying planes and even a bus wrapped in Barracuda graphics (billboards during the Super Bowl, Faugno says, are cost-prohibitive).

SAP, the German business software giant with U.S. headquarters in Palo Alto and a founding partner in the 49ers' Santa Clara stadium, also will send a bevy of executives to the game. Its software will power much of the event's digital operations, a powerful way to show off to customers, says chief marketing officer Jonathan Becher.

But SAP also sees the game as an opportunity to "humanize" its enterprise-grade analytics, as Becher puts it, noting that while his company's software is involved in 63 percent of the world's transactions, most people have never heard of SAP.

Fantasy vote

As the NFL's official cloud computing and business software sponsor, SAP recently released a flashy online tool complete with slick graphics and analysis of players' statistics that lets fans vote on the fantasy football player of the year. The winner will be announced Saturday.

The fun tools are an effort to make the company's software, typically employed through multimillion-dollar contracts by large corporations, relevant to small businesses or the average person.

"If we can show people how having better data in one part of your life (works), that'll be a trickle-down effect as to how it'll improve their business," Becher said.

Other companies plan more indirect involvement with the Super Bowl.

Video game maker Ubisoft is not sending anyone there on official business. But the San Francisco company worked with 49ers wide receiver Michael Crabtree this year, one of three NFL players to promote its game "The HipHop Dance Experience," which features his touchdown dance.

While Crabtree is not the biggest NFL name, Ubisoft spokesman Michael Beadle said, the company wanted to incorporate as much hometown talent as possible. (Ubisoft also donates to charity for every Crabtree touchdown.)

Now that Crabtree could perform his signature shimmy on football's biggest stage, Ubisoft couldn't be happier. "We feel almost validated," Beadle said. "It's been fun feeling like we're almost alongside him."

Capitalizing on game

Some Bay Area tech companies will bolster business without official representatives at the game or flashy products. Twitter, for instance, is expected to be home to much of the dialogue and banter around the big game. Not only will it be home to updates on and from players, but the big brands that use the microblogging service will use it to advertise, especially with the big price tag of a TV spot (see related story).

The biggest concern for any Bay Area company trying to capitalize on Super Bowl buzz? It might be finding out that the company they hope to connect with has headquarters in Baltimore. Folks from those firms will probably be wearing the Ravens' purple and black on Super Sunday.